


Head Over Heels

by wagamiller



Category: Agent Carter (TV)
Genre: F/M, Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-28
Updated: 2016-02-28
Packaged: 2018-05-23 18:18:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,284
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6125752
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wagamiller/pseuds/wagamiller
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Saving the world with a rebar hole in your abdomen is bound to catch up with you, in the end. </p>
<p>If only it wasn't at quite such an inconvenient moment.</p>
<p>(2x10 spec, sort of)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Head Over Heels

**Author's Note:**

> I've no clue how much time has actually passed in the show since Peggy's injury, but this is sort of inspired by the idea that it's not been very long at all. Also this is sappy in the extreme and honestly, I make no apologies there. I just love these two so damn much. Vague speculation for some things that might happen and some things that probably won't, but no actual spoilers.
> 
> Unbeta'd and somewhat hastily posted so apologies for any typos, I wanted to get this up before the finale actually airs.

Peggy opens her eyes to the familiar ceiling of her bedroom.

Which is a little odd, really, considering that the last time she blinked she was definitely outside. She tries blinking again, slower this time, but the ceiling stays white and clean and certainly _not_ sky.

“Peggy?” A familiar voice, rough with worry, cuts the silence. She drops her head to the side, finding Daniel perched beside her on the stool from her dressing table, his bad leg stretched out awkwardly to his side. Seeing her awake, he blows out a long breath, relief smoothing away the pinch of a frown between his eyes. “Thank God, you’re awake.”

His presence explains nothing at all – not why she’s lying down on her chaise longue, nor how she got there – but she feels herself start to relax all the same. “Daniel.” She smiles at him, her lips ticking upwards quite of their own accord, until she realises he’s not smiling back. “What – what happened?”

He shakes his head, huffing a desperate sort of half-laugh. “What happened is that you scared the hell out of me.” He leans in even closer, his elbows resting on his thighs. “Again.”

“I don’t remember–” She makes to sit up, hissing when her side twinges in protest. “Did I … faint?”

“Woah, no sudden moves okay?” Daniel reaches for her at once, steadying her with a hand on her arm. “You took more than a few knocks to that wound today.”

“Fine, fine.” She settles back down, grumbling her displeasure at the ache in her side. Daniel leans back a little, releasing his hold on her shoulder. “Daniel?” She bobs her head to catch his suddenly skittish gaze. “What is it?”

“So – ah – you don’t remember?” He clears his throat, scratching a hand over his cheek. “Any of it?”

“No, no, I do. I’m sure I do. Just – just give me a moment.” She tries sitting up again, succeeding in dragging herself up against the end of the chaise longue, her legs still stretched out in front of her. She tilts her head at him, examining the memories rising to the surface of her mind. “Jason is … safe?”

“As houses. He’s got zero Zero Matter readings.”

“We stopped Whitney Frost.”

“We did.”

“And I – I caught you – I stopped you ... falling into that rift.”

“You saved my life.”

She closes her eyes, concentrating. “And then…”

“And then …” he repeats slowly, like a man condemned.

Her eyes snap open. “Oh.” The memory comes back in pieces – in feelings. The scratch of his suit jacket clenched tight in her hands. His hand in her hair. The press of his lips against hers. “ _Oh.”_

“Yeah.”

She touches her fingers to her lips, her stomach turning over when he follows the motion with his eyes. She lowers her hand slowly, carefully. “Just to be clear – that did happen, didn’t it?”

He rears back, rolling his eyes heavenward as if the very notion of her imagining such a thing is quite beyond him.

“Daniel, I’m serious.” Lord knows her subconscious is a somewhat wacky place to be at the moment. She absolutely wouldn’t put it past herself to have dreamed up the whole thing. The whole, frankly _wonderful_ thing. “I’m not imagining it?”

“If by ‘it’ you mean me kissing you and you passing out then no, you’re _not_ imagining it.”

“Ah.” The strongest, strangest urge to laugh almost overtakes her. She covers her mouth with her hand, though that can’t hide the lift in her cheeks. “I see.”

“And now you’re laughing,” Daniel grumbles half-heartedly, fighting a laugh himself. “That’s just great.”

Giving in, she lets the laugh in her throat bubble up into something dangerously close to a giggle, breathless and wonderful. At the sound, the last of the hesitation disappears from Daniel’s face and then he’s laughing along with her, and she has the silly, fleeting thought that she never wants to hear another sound in the whole world. Relief – sudden and overwhelming – sweeps over her, almost enough to make her light-headed again. Because it’s over, and he’s safe and he’s here and there’s a very good chance that he’s _hers,_ completely, if she wants him. And oh, she wants him.

She reaches for him, gritting her teeth at the sudden ache in her side. Daniel winces with her, offering his hands and holding tight as she carefully swings her legs round and onto the floor. Finally settled sitting opposite him, she rests their joined hands on her knees and takes a steadying breath, meeting his warm gaze. His eyes are soft and there’s a flush of colour on his cheeks that she’s never seen before, that she’d very much like to see again and again, every day for the foreseeable future. For once, the thought doesn’t terrify her.

“You kissed me,” she says, lowering her voice to a whisper.

He nods, leaning into the ever decreasing space between them. “I did.”

“And then I fainted.”

“Yes.” One side of his mouth lifts. “Honestly, I’m still not sure if I should be offended or smug about that.”

“Smug,” she says, far too quickly, remembering the moment. “Definitely smug.” With a swoop of anticipation and, if she’s completely honest, slight panic, she realises that he’s now incredibly close. So close, in fact, that she can see the flecks of gray at his temple when he turns to check that the door is closed, and the bob of his throat as he swallows, hard, when he turns back to find her eyes on his lips.

“If I do it again,” he begins, his voice low and tempting, “are you gonna stay conscious this time?”

“I’ll do my best.” She licks her lips, rewarded by a sharp intake of breath from him. “No promises.”

He smiles, his eyes darkening, and then he’s leaning in and then – then, _oh_ , he’s kissing her again. She releases his hands, reaching for his waist and clutching at his shirt instead, trying to drag him even closer. He smiles against her lips, mumbling something that might be her name, and when his hand on her jaw trembles ever so slightly, that’s it – she’s ruined, gone, a complete lost cause for him. She opens her mouth to him, her hand trailing up to to his hair and sinking into the short strands, drawing a desperate groan from him that makes her shudder under his lips.

Reaching for her hips, he over-balances and tips up the stool he’s perching on, his leg sliding out from under him. She catches him easily, holding him steady while he lifts his leg back into place. He sits back carefully, grumbling his displeasure, his jaw tight with embarrassment. And that? Well, that just won’t do.

“Now who’s falling over themselves?” She arches an eyebrow, making a point of smirking at him. “I don’t suppose that quite makes us even?”

He gives her a grudging smile, amusement winning out over his unease. “Almost.”

“Look at the state of you.” She snorts, reaching up a thumb to try and rub off some of the lipstick that’s transferred to his lips.

“Not my colour, huh?” He looks thoroughly debauched, his lips stained red, his hair a mess from her wandering hands, but he wears it _incredibly_ well.

“Maybe,” she says, cocking her head to consider him. “We’ll probably have to try some other colours, though.”

“You think so?” It’s framed like a joke, teasing and light, but there’s a nervousness in his eyes that betrays him. “I mean – you want to–”

“I do,” she says, answering the question he hasn’t quite managed to ask. “I want you, Daniel.”

Well. That hits him for six. He blows out a breath, fixing her with a wide-eyed smile. “Okay. Good. That’s – that’s good.” He leans in for another kiss – chaste this time, and quick. The promise of more later. Fixing her with a rueful smile, he takes her hand again, giving it a squeeze. “I guess … we’ll talk tomorrow then? I should let you get some rest.”

“You absolutely should not.”

“Peggy,” he says, trying and failing to sound anything other than thrilled that she wants him to stay. He’s so delightfully transparent about her, it’s really rather adorable. “You passed out. You’re exhausted. You gotta rest–”

“I fully intend to rest.”

“I don’t follow–”

“Oh, well if you must know.” She flaps her hands, batting at the air between them. “You almost died today, Daniel.”

“Peg, I–”

“Or you almost got sucked into – into another dimension, I suppose. Anyway, the point is I’m fairly sure that every time I close my eyes for quite a considerable time I am going to see you … disappearing into that – well, whatever it was.” She huffs, hating herself for her weakness but grateful that Daniel, absolute darling that he is, isn’t looking at her with pity right now. “So if you don’t mind, I would like you to … stay, please.” She takes his hand, and he is solid and warm and _safe._ “I need to know you’re here with me. Corporeally, I mean. That is–”

“Not a problem,” he says at once, mercifully cutting her off before she can babble any further. “I’ll stay.”

“Okay then.” Relief floods through her, because he’s staying maybe, or because she admitted that she needed him and the sky didn’t fall in, either way she can’t seem to stop smiling. Her face actually aches with it. That’s … new. “So you’re staying.”

“I’m staying.” Daniel smiles back at her, and the sudden urge to hold him, properly, for the first time, takes over. It’s absurd, a nonsense really, that she doesn’t know what it feels like to be in his arms. Gritting her teeth against the ache in her side, she stands up carefully, using his shoulder for balance.

“Easy, easy,” he says, reaching for his crutch and struggling upright after her, using his free hand to steady her as she sways a little on the spot. “See, this is what happens when you run around saving the world with a rebar hole in your stomach.”

“I’m not sure I was saving the world–”

“Los Angeles, then,” he amends, the hand still resting on her hip giving her a slight squeeze.

“You know, I wasn’t really thinking about saving the city in the end.” She lifts up her hand, tracing the edge of his jaw. “Just you.”

Daniel smothers a grin and clears his throat, feigning nonchalance. Really rather poorly, actually. “So saving the city was just–”

“A handy side effect,” she says, affecting a shrug.

“Let’s not put that in the official report.”

“Probably shouldn’t put this in it either, Chief,” she says, leaning in to kiss him again.

“Agreed.”

Peggy hums in pleasure, leaning into the kiss, the pain in her side quite forgotten. It’s easy to forget it – to forget her own name for that matter – when he’s kissing her like this. His hand is in her hair and his tongue is sliding against hers and he _loves_ her. And it’s so obvious now, so bloody obvious she feels like the biggest fool in California for not seeing it sooner – she loves him too.

“Woah. Steady on there you too.” Howard’s voice suddenly intrudes, which is really rather inconvenient because she’s fairly sure she was about thirty seconds away from causing Daniel to make that delicious little moan again. “Don’t want her keeling over again.”

Peggy pulls back from the kiss, sharing a long-suffering look with Daniel. “Oh, joy.” She glances over Daniel’s shoulder and finds Howard in the doorway, a Cheshire cat grin on his face. “There were witnesses earlier. I forgot.”

“Nothing to be embarrassed about, Peg,” Howard goes on, still beaming. “I think it’s swell that you found someone who sweeps you off your feet.”

“Oh, stop.”

“What? So you’re head over heels for him, I think it’s sweet.”

“I’m never going to live this down, am I?”

“Not in this lifetime.”

“Hey, Stark?” Daniel flicks a look at Stark over his shoulder.

“Yeah?”

“Shut up.” With that, Daniel turns back to Peggy and kisses her soundly, quite unconcerned about their audience.

Somewhere over by the door, she hears Howard splutters a delighted laugh. “I’m gonna like you, Sousa. I can tell.”

Peggy pulls back from the kiss, her stomach tightening at the barely concealed smirk on Daniel’s face. It’s a good look on him. A very, very, good look. She grimaces, irritated by Howard’s continuing presence when she would very much like to be kissing the smirk off Daniel’s face. “Howard, did you actually want something? Besides winding me up, I mean?”

“I did, actually,” he says, feigning offence. “I don’t know about you, but all those heroics really gave me an appetite. I’m going to run out for some food, I came to see if you two lovebirds were hungry too.”

“I could eat,” Daniel says, considering it. “If you’re buying.”

“I’m a billionaire, pal, I’m always buying.”

Daniel laughs. “I could get used to that. You hungry, Peg?”

“Famished, actually.”

“Okay then,” Howard claps his hands, backing out of the room. “Picnic in Ana’s sitting room in ten minutes.”

Daniel makes to move after him, stepping back from her and moving his crutch to turn around.

Peggy reaches out a restraining hand. “Hold on, where are you going?”

“To Ana’s room. Stark said–”

“Ten minutes.” She raises her eyebrows at him, the challenge evident. “He said ten minutes.”

“Oh,” he says slowly, a smile tugging at his lips. He spins carefully back towards her, stepping into the space between them. “I can work with ten minutes.”

She hums her approval, slipping her hands around his waist. “I was rather hoping you’d say that.”


End file.
